BAY CITY, MI — A 23-year-old Bay City man has pleaded no contest to a felonious hate crime stemming from a summer attack on a black man in the city’s West Side.

On Tuesday, Nov. 20, Justin L. Bouza appeared before Bay County District Judge Mark E. Janer and pleaded no contest to a charge of ethnic intimidation, a two-year felony. Bouza also pleaded no contest to a one-year misdemeanor count of aggravated assault. Immediately before he pleaded, Bouza waived his right to a preliminary examination and was bound over to Circuit Court, prompting Janer to act as a judge for the higher court when he accepted Bouza’s plea.

In exchange for Bouza’s pleas, Bay County Assistant Prosecutor J. Dee Brooks agreed not to seek a habitual offender sentencing enhancement. Brooks also said his office would not seek a more serious charge of assault with intent to do great bodily harm, a four-year felony.

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for purposes of sentencing. As Bouza did not give an account of what happened, Janer had to rely on police reports to accept his pleas.

The reports indicate Bouza and another man in the early morning of Aug. 12 attacked 26-year-old Jeremy D. Love in the area of Ohio and Henry streets. Police arrived at the scene to find Love motionless on the ground, bleeding from his nose and mouth.

Witnesses told officers Bouza and the other man yelled racial epithets as they knocked Love, who is black, to the ground and proceeded to beat him and spit on him.

“‘The victim who was knocked down did not even fight back,’” Janer said, reading aloud one witness’s statement.

Love suffered a concussion and a fracture to his nose.

The other man witnesses said was with Bouza was not charged.

Bouza’s defense attorney, Kenneth M. Malkin, previously said there was evidence that Bouza and Love’s altercation was more mutual.